The war had been raging for almost two years when the British War Office sent two cameramen, one of them Geoffrey Malins, over to France's Western Front to document what the English department felt would be a major breakthough of the German lines during World War One.
Malins and cameraman John McDowell shot reels of film of the preparatory stage of British Expeditionary Force gearing up for its big push around the Somme River. Malins was informed the battle would begin when the detonation of tons of dynamite was ignited underneath the German-held Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. Malins, with limited film stock, was concerned when he ran through 250 feet of film and the appointed time of the explosion didn't come off. Then, in the next breath, he caught on film one of the largest mine explosions under enemy trenches. The release of August 1916's "The Battle of the Somme" captivated British audiences, especially seeing the explosion that was felt on July 1st all the way to London. The explosion can be seen around 29 minutes into the movie.
More tickets were sold in the first six weeks of the release of "The Battle of the Somme" than any other movie in England until 1977's "Star Wars," over 20 million viewers. London cinemas were saturated by playing the movie, with 34 projecting it all at the same time. Parents attended several showings of the film in hopes of seeing their sons. The documentry gained international status, displaying for the world, including Germany, the look of the lingering two-year war.
The 75-minute film was cinema's first feature war documentary, and the pattern Malins established would be followed throughout thousands of movie war documentaries.
Malins was able to record the bloodiest day in English history. Over 58,000 British soldiers either were killed, wounded or went missing on that July 1, 1916 day. Some of the German gunfire was so intense that as soon as the soldiers climbed out of their staging trenches scores were killed just 10 to 15 steps from where they began. Malins had to stage some of the battle scenes afterwards, recreating the scenes 25 miles behind the battlefield. But the cameramen were fortunate to film overrun German trenches and groups of German prisoners. But most effecting British viewers were the scenes of the wounded and dead of the United Kingdom's soldiers laid out and carried on stretchers.
After editing and releasing "The Battle of the Somme," Malins returned to France to film the war's introduction to the English tank, first used in the September 15, 1916 battle for the village of Flers-Courcellette. Marlins' January 1917 "The Battle of the Ancre and the Advance of the Tanks," unveiled to England's populace its country's secret weapon and its hope of breaking the Western Front logjam by this new solid steel mobile vehicle.
In later documentaries on World War 1, filmmakers used Malins and McDowell's footage to illustrate the advancements and brutalities of the war, a war that everyone at the time had predicted would end all wars.
